In 8th
grade, I had Mr. Roeloff for Social Studies.
I had heard about him and had so hoped I would not get him for my
teacher. He had a reputation for being a
very difficult and demanding teacher. He
also hated Mormons, but that is a different story for a different day. Well, maybe not. I will just tell it now: He put a question on a test every year: “It
is legal to kill a Mormon in the state of Missouri.” True or False. At that time, it was true. The law was changed in 1976. He also put another question on a test once
that caused me great consternation. I
knew what answer he wanted me to put, but that answer was wrong. I don’t remember the whole question, but I
remember that part of the wording was “Joe Smith” instead of “Joseph.” He knew that his question would cause dilemma
for his Mormon students. Do we answer to get points or to be right? It was his passive aggressive way to punish
Mormons. Anyway, back to my story:
Mr. Roeloff’s goal was to teach us Social
Studies, but also to teach us a study technique that could bless us and help us
study even through college. He told us
this was the technique he used all through his college education. He assigned us chapters to read each
day. But besides reading, we had to
outline what we read. He spent a great
deal of time teaching us how to outline in his special method. We all had spiral notebooks in which to do
the outlining. When we came to class, I
think it was on Fridays, as I remember, we had to get our notebooks out and
open to that week’s outlines. He would
walk around the room checking them and marking our grade in his book. That outlining notebook represented a certain
percentage of our grade. The rest of the
grade was made up of weekly quizzes and midterm and term tests.
I did the
outlining for a while. But then I fell
behind. Each day I got a little further
behind. Then it just seemed overwhelming
to try to catch up. Each week, as Mr. Roeloff came to my desk, he would mark a
0 for not doing the assignment in his book.
I can still remember that horrible feeling as he came to my desk each
week and marked another zero in his book by my name.
When midterm
grades came out, which included our outlining assignments, I had a D-. A D-!
I was so embarrassed to show my parents.
I explained to my dad why I had that grade. He and I worked out what I could do to get
that grade up. My dad set up a card
table for me in the living room. Each
night, I would work and work to make up the outlining I had neglected. It was a struggle and way harder than it
would have been to just do the assignments in a timely way. But, cheered on by my dad, I was determined
to get caught up. I would sit alone in
the living room, night after night, writing and writing. I could hear the television on in the other
room and wished I could be in there with my family. But I diligently worked on getting caught up.
One day,
just before the term grades came out, Mr. Roeloff stood before the class. Believe me, I will never forget this
moment: He announced that at midterm
there were 15 (as I remember it) students with failing or near-failing
grades. But only one of them had worked
hard and pulled that grade up. He didn’t
announce who that was, but I knew. He
smiled at me. Sure enough, when I got my
report card, I now had a B+ in Social Studies.
I was so pleased with myself, and so was my dad. I had learned a lot about Social Studies,
but, maybe more importantly, I learned about keeping up in school and about
repentance when I mess up.
Note: I never used his outlining method again. I had my fill of it that year. But I did alright in high school and college
anyway.
